Introduction by Ray Greene of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association.

35 mm!

SPIRITED AWAY

SEN TO CHIHIRO NO KAMIKAKUSHI

2001,
GKIDS,
125 min,
Japan,
Dir: Hayao Miyazaki

Hayao Miyazaki’s Academy Award-winning masterpiece was the biggest box office hit of all time in Japan and helped redefine the possibilities of animation for American audiences and a generation of new filmmakers. Wandering through an abandoned carnival site, 10-year-old Chichiro is separated from her parents and stumbles into a dreamlike spirit world, where she is put to work in a bathhouse for the gods, a place where all kinds of nonhuman beings come to refresh, relax and recharge. Here she encounters a vast menagerie of impossibly inventive characters - shape-shifting phantoms and spirits, some friendly, some less so - and must find the inner strength to outsmart her captors and return to her family. Combining Japanese mythology with Through the Looking Glass-type whimsy, SPIRITED AWAY cemented Miyazaki’s reputation as an icon of inspired animation and wondrous, lyrical storytelling. “Prepare to be astonished.” - Los Angeles Times “Epic and marvelous! Phantasmagoric!” - New York Times “One of the year’s best films!” - Roger Ebert.